After the last cathartic post on why I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, not to mention the constant whining about not writing, I have actually been writing a lot.
I currently have three novels on the go, and as of last week another new story; so new it doesn’t even have a working title. I’m only at the beginning, 1000 words down and some planning, but it feels like it could be the start of a series, maybe shorts, not sure yet, it’s a bit of a new style for me… And that’s the thing. After not writing for a while, I’m having an absolutely wondrous time, experimenting. Experimenting with different formats and lengths, with stories spanning hard core space opera, dystopian earth-like civilisations, earth- and space-based, human- and alien-like characters, imagining technologies of the future, their evolution and impact on “humanity”. It is brilliant!
I started this month well, trying out a new time management idea – writing every morning; I had been getting too tired to write in the evenings. It worked well for a week or so, but the real world (work) interrupted, so I have reverted to writing wherever and whenever I can. I’d like to try this morning regime again if/when my day job calms down a little. It was an excellent way to start the day. Whilst I complain a bit (ok, maybe a lot) about the day job, I am writing a lot there and really trying to up the quality. I’ve written at least 10000 words this month, not counting emails… on some cool science and technology (I’m trying to avoid counting but it was a good month). I think that the fiction and non-fiction writing are helping one another – after all, it’s all writing.
On top of that I’ve been reading a lot more than I have for a while. Time is never on my side, but recently I got my e-library all sorted; I wrote about this back at the start of the year – A Library, but not a book in sight. It took some tweeking since, but it has really been helpful. I also decided to alternate my reading between old and new, for example I recently read H.G Wells’ The Time Machine, and am now on the recent anniversary follow up, The Time Ship, by Stephan Baxter.
Overall, I’m approaching the end of the year, not where I was expecting, but certainly very happy that things are progressing. I’m writing more and it’s getting better. Best of all, I’m feeling better about it.
Harry T. Tuttle 